In many games, there is a virtual world or some other imagined playing space where a game player controls one or more player characters (herein “character,” “player character,” or “PC”). Player characters may be considered in-game representations of the controlling player. As used here, the terms “player,” “user,” “entity,” and “friend” may refer to the in-game player character controlled by that player, user, entity, or friend, unless context suggests otherwise. A game display may display a representation of the player character. A game engine accepts inputs from the player, determines player character actions, decides outcomes of events, and presents the player with a game display illuminating what happened. In some games, there are multiple players, wherein each player controls one or more player characters.
Internet users typically access online games using browser clients (e.g., Firefox®, Google Chrome™, Internet Explorer®, etc.). Many mobile client devices (e.g., cellular phones, personal digital assistants, computer tablets, etc.) can access and run various computer games via the Internet. Mobile client users typically access online games by using the browser clients or custom applications.
Typically users may also incorporate a browser client to handle many aspects of their online interests and daily activities including e-mail (e.g., Gmail™ webmail service, Yahoo! Mail™, GMX™ Mail, etc.), information searches by online search providers (e.g., Google Search, Bling™, Yahoo!™ Search, etc.), shopping (e.g., Google Shopping™, Amazon.com™,), and social networking (Facebook®, LinkedIn®, Twitter®).
Any of these online browsing environments may serve online advertisements to users during the course of their pursuits of online activities. One common approach for triggering the serving of an online advertisement is for a browser or online application to determine a user's location and display an advertisement with some correlation to the determined location. Another trigger of online display advertisements may be the content of personal e-mail, which many users may consider to be intrusive.